4th Space E

[brl2833]

I took a couple years off the horn and now that I have picked it back up, I have noticed that my 4th space E is REALLY flat. So flat that that I play it 1-2 rather than open. I realize that note is usually a flat note, but it never was this flat. Anyone else have that issue?
_________________
BAC New York Arist B-flat Trumpet
Austin Custom Brass Doublers Piccolo
Austin Custom Brass Doublers Flugelhorn
Carolina Crown 3C Mouthpiece
Marcinkiewicz Roger Ingram Mouthpiece

[INTJ]

[trumpet.trader]

Often players have the tuning slide out so far, as they’re trying to get a darker sound, or staring a a tuner and some notes are sharp and just compensating too much.

Then the naturally flat notes are wayyyyy flat.

I’d try pushing in, playing lower on the pitches and you might notice those Ds, Ebs and Es are closer to where they should be.

And use your ears and not the tuner!!

[INTJ]

We can't rely on a tuner when playing with an ensemble, but a tuner is an excellent tool to help learn/solidify where pitch centers should be when practicing, especially when we have no other harmonic reference. It adds visual feedback to what we hear with our ears and feel with our chops. It helps keep us from training ourselves to play out of tune. If we train ourselves to generally hit the center of the note, adjustments to tune the chord will be minimal.
_________________
Harrels VPS Summit
Wild Thing
Flip Oakes C
Flip Oakes Flugel

Harrelson 5mm MP

[Morogan]

4th space E played open or only 3rd valve is, on most trumpets, typically between 5 to 15 cents flat. I think that most players that are actively playing a lot tend to naturally compensate by lipping up based on muscle memory. I noticed similar things when I came back to playing after a long hiatus because my embouchure had forgotten a lot of these little nuances and I tended to slot where trumpet physics wanted me to go. After getting back into the swing of things, things got back to normal.

By the way, both 1+2 and 1+2+3 are going to typically be closer in tune on that particular note, but they can obviously be a bit cumbersome depending on the material. I suggest hanging in there for a bit and revisiting this note later to see if you resume naturally compensating.

One other thing you might want to look into if this remains an issue is your mouthpiece gap which can affect how the partials line up. Much less effective in my opinion, but sometimes slightly helpful nonetheless, would be a backbore change.
_________________
My Gear

[conn53victor]

[gabriel127]

Well if someone would only make the trumpet linked below, we wouldn't have to worry about any of these problems.

http://www.benoitglazer.com/trumpet-ideas.html

But of course, the trumpet with its current design has the following common flaws.

Bottom line E is sharp
2nd space A is sharp
2nd line G sharp and the one on top of the staff are flat
4th space E is flat
D above high C is flat

And of course low D and C# are sharp so we have to push out the 3rd valve slide.

There are a lot of trumpet manufacturers out there who claim their horns play in tune with themselves, but they don't. Some manufacturer oughta try making Benoit Glazer's design, even though it's kind of a funny-looking trumpet.

[INTJ]

Or just get a trumpet wide wide slots and learn where the pitches should be.....
_________________
Harrels VPS Summit
Wild Thing
Flip Oakes C
Flip Oakes Flugel

Harrelson 5mm MP

[tim_wolf]

Interesting. A while back, I recorded a long tone exercise on Sibelius to play along with for intonation purposes (and it's a bit more interesting!). To my surprise, I found I was sharp on fourth space E and needed to relax a bit. Now, this is only on my Bb; E on my C trumpet is still flat. It's funny, but I really have to fight the "fourth space E is flat" mentality and avoid lipping it up. Old habits die hard.

[iiipopes]

Trumpets are not the only instruments that have flat fifth partials. This is because we have 20th century equally tempered ears and we are expected to play in all keys chromatically.

The math is that the pitch of E compared to C, a major third, is in the ration of 5/4, or 1.25 when playing natural partials. But, when re-defined as four equally tempered half-steps, in the ratio of pitch of 2^1/12, or approximately 1.0594631, then the ratio is 1.0594631^4, or approximately 1.26. In other words, an equally tempered major third is slightly sharper than a natural major third.

Then there are the differences in horn design. With adjusting the conical to cylindrical proportion, a brass instrument can be made to play just about anything. For example, a Miraphone 186 tuba is notorious for having flat fifth partials, just like the trumpets in this discussion. However, a King 1241 tuba is actually known for fairly good fifth partial intonation at the expense of sharp sixth partial intonation.

My King Super 20 trumpet has really decent intonation, including pulling and setting the individual slides for the typical low range culprits.
_________________
King Super 20 Trumpet; Sov 921 Cornet
Bach cornet modded to be a 181L clone
Couesnon Flugelhorn and C trumpet